OIES Class Tours ORS/The Exchange
If you were leading a tour of Orcas Recycling Services/The Exchange for 27 third-graders, what might you expect?
Answer: lots of energy and enthusiasm, loads of questions, and a genuine interest in how to recycle better.
On April 10th, Catherine Laflin, a third-grade teacher at Orcas Island Elementary School, and five chaperones, brought her class to the transfer station and spent 90-minutes learning about recycling. Jim “Duff” Duffield, volunteer docent; John Gratch, ORS board member; and Rinda McGarry, transfer station manager, led the tour.
It was a ball of energy from the time students exited the bus, donned orange vests, and began a comprehensive walk-around of the recycling facilities.
The tour kicked off at the Z-wall (the recycling bins most people know about) where the kids learned the difference between garbage and recycling. They were also educated on the 321-mile journey Orcas garbage must take on trucks to Burlington, and then onto a train bound for a massive landfill in Republic, WA.
During the tour, topics discussed included mixed recycling, loose paper, and cereal-box cardboard. The kids learned how easy it is to contaminate a load of mixed recycling and how it that can result in a costly waste of time and money. They also learned that it is better to throw something in trash rather than to assume it is recyclable.
Back at the Z-wall, the tour continued with a discussion on “freecycle” materials. ORS has continued to expand what can be recycled for free – a benefit that has become very popular with customer. Beginning with aluminum beverage cans, ORS has added clean aluminum cat food cans, and steel (“tin”) cans as free items to recycle. Additionally, the kids learned how to use a small magnet to determine whether a can is aluminum or steel.
Corrugated cardboard was also discussed. ORS has around 10 cardboard bins being filled at all times. The students learned how to distinguish corrugated cardboard from cereal box or other types of cardboard. The tour then shifted to a discussion about glass where the kids posed questions about corks, lids, labels, and were then able to see their questions answered in action. Mobley, the ORS equipment operator, used a special forklift to move a bin of glass to the glass crusher (Big Blue), where the students would be able to watch it be crushed. Along the way, as a lark, the class and staff stood on the truck scale to see how much they weighed—3280 pounds!
On the way to Big Blue the class was able to see the old land fill where trash was disposed of before ORS got involved with waste management on Orcas. They also got to see the mountain of green waste brought in by customers to be chipped and ground and made into mulch this summer – a much better solution than burning green waste.
At Big Blue, the kids learned how the glass crusher works and experienced how quiet it is. They were able to watch the machine separate non-glass parts as trash and pulverize the recycled glass into a fine “sand”. Each student got to collect a bag of crushed glass to take home as a souvenir.
Next stop: the new baler building to see what happens there. While the baler itself was not running, kids were able to see bales of cardboard loaded into a long trailer, as well as another trailer loaded with bales of aluminum cans. They learned how much more efficient it is to take these recycled commodities off island as bales.
The students took a brief walk around the blue tipping floor building to see the off items that are also recycled including steel pieces, car and truck tires, TVs and computer monitors, and fluorescent bulbs. They also learned about the locker used to store Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) collected 2 or 3 times each year.
The last stop on the tour was The Exchange. Manager Jeff Ludwig met the kids and told them a little about the idea of reselling items that still have value, even if it is a fraction of the original value. After browsing The Exchange and finding a book to take home with them, the class re-boarded the bus to return to school. As they turned in their orange vest, they were given a small adhesive-backed magnet to help them sort steel and aluminum cans at home, and maybe even become the recycle leader in their family.
NOTE: If you have a class, a club, or even a family that wants to know more about recycling and is interested in a tour, please contact Rinda to get the ball rolling. We will make every effort to show you our operations and answer your questions.